Onward and Upward! How to live an uncommon life.

The Wall – on to Victory!

Marathoners will tell you that there is a point at which everything in you – your body, your mind, your heart – is telling you to quit. They call it “the wall” and every runner faces it at one point or another in his running career.

To overcome, to move through the artificial barrier, you must dig deep down and draw on a source of inspiration that enlarges the borders of your tent of possibility.

The human will can be a marvelous and formidable catalyst for progress. Used rightly, it allows you to go where you and possibly no other person, has gone before. Used wrongly it is a powerful tool for destruction, and eventually, for self-destruction.

When you approach the borders of your tent or the limits of your performance or comfort envelope you have a choice to make: carry on or give up. It’s that simple.

This applies to new challenges you face as well as to chronic areas of failure in your experience. If you let a pattern of previous failures stop you, you will be stopped. If not, you have an opportunity to establish a new victory. This new victory is a precedent and a template for future victories.

What or who inspires you to greatness? Is it your faith, your admiration of another, your own determination to serve as a model for others to follow?

Every person, place and thing mentioned in my blog has given me an extra push when I most needed it. I am thankful to the depths of my soul for those who have established a precedent of victory for others, including me, to follow.

I hope that you can take the time to consider and acknowledge those who have deposited trust in you beyond where you have trusted yourself, for in so doing they have rendered you an incredible service.

The Founding Fathers of our Great Nation provide a perfect starting point in this regard. On this 4th of July celebration, my hat goes off to them. They revealed undaunted courage in the face of adversity in a time when the world was hitting “the wall.”

I have always loved this quote by one of our founding fathers (BF), “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Whether you’re doing something worth reading or something worth writing about, the point is, “you’re doing!” To lead an exciting life doesn’t include quitting, giving up or failure. Often I’ll look at the big picture of my life and ask myself, “Would I look back at this decision with pride or with disappointment?” and that will help me move past the obstacles that may seem so huge at the moment.

Thanks for this post. Everyone has challenges to meet and it’s those who have moved past them that can inspire others to do the same.

Congratulations on entering your 6th month since you started this blog! It has opened our worlds up to some truly inspiring people and ideas. We were just looking through the back posts month by month – genius!!

“The wall” is something interesting, because every time you pass it there is a new wall; a new goal to achieve. There are so many things to do in the world, and many walls to surmount. It is exciting to think about how much there is to do!

Trusting and depending on the “Source” of ones inspiration is a tremendously powerful tool, that need be remembered in times of great pressure. How often in times of movement from the known to the unknown, we forget either who we are and or why we are doing what we are doing, and in an instant that forgetting can lead to much destruction. It is wise to, on a daily basis, and some days many times, to re-center our hearts as to those very basic questions, so that when the pressure comes on, our answer is loud, clear and unwavering, without a shadow of turning!
Thanks again for this wonderful tool of centering!

Thank you for honoring those great men (and women) who valued liberty more than any ‘wall’ they came up against. I think specifically of those 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured. It is worthwhile to look into who these people were and to hear their stories, because they and their families did not have an easy time of it. But they remained unwavering, for which we can be eternally grateful today. “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” It certainly is inspiring, and makes most ‘walls’ that I come up against pale in comparison. But as another reader suggested, what a great honor and challenge to surmount the next wall!

This is a joyous holiday and also a thought-provoking one… so much to appreciate of how far America has come and much to contemplate about how much further it has to go. Our personal introspection, integrity and commitment is essential in keeping things moving in a forward direction.